


Prompts: (mostly) Clean

by allegoricalrose (SilentStars)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Airplanes, Children, Cold Weather, F/M, Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, Marriage Proposal, Newborn Children, One Shot Collection, Parent-Child Relationship, Pregnancy, Prison, Puppies, Regeneration, Reunion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-04 09:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 10,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3062114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentStars/pseuds/allegoricalrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompts via tumblr (all Doctor/Rose): <i>mostly clean edition</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nine/Rose; Calm; Plane

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Последняя капля](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8505829) by [TheLadyRo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyRo/pseuds/TheLadyRo)



"That excessive tapping of your foot is rather distracting, Rose."

"Sorry. Can’t help it. Never flown before…"

The Doctor crinkled his forehead. “What do you mean? We fly in the TARDIS all the time.”

Rose gripped the armrest as the engines started up. “Yeah, but…that’s different. I don’t have to see everything, it just…happens. Besides, I trust you, never even met this pilot…”

"Rose Tyler. Bravest human I know, swung on a rope over a vat of molten plastic to rescue me and save London… Afraid of a passenger airline?"

"So? Loads of people are." A grin rose up his face but he didn’t say anything further, just took her hand and turned toward the window. "The engines sound good and we’re about to wheel over to the runway. Once air traffic control checks everything over a few times, the plane will pick up speed and then gently tilt up into the sky. There’s often a tiny bit of turbulence as we go through the clouds, but turbulence isn’t dangerous, just a little startling sometimes. A nuisance more than anything else; even the strongest gust or air pocket couldn’t crash this type of plane. Once we level out, everything should be smooth."

She didn’t say anything as the plane prepared for take off, gripping his hand tighter when they ascended upward, and only let out a tiny gasp when the plane shuddered slightly in the cloud layer. Once they were at cruising altitude the captain switched off the seatbelt lights and the Doctor gestured toward the window.

"Have a look down there: you can see the entire atoll of islands and the Great Barrier Reef further out. Not worth missing."

With shaky fingers she unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned over his lap. “That is really pretty,” she admitted longingly before turning away. “But I’m just…think I’ll stick to watching the back of the seat instead.”

"Fear of heights from a woman who swung from a barrage balloon over London?"

"It’s not like I _intended_ to do that. And I was very grateful when it was over.”

"I can imagine," the Doctor laughed. "Fair enough. Anyway, it’s only a twenty minute flight back, practically over already."

She was in the process of re-fastening her seatbelt when a large jolt shook the plane. The Doctor immediately grabbed her around the waist and she scrambled hysterically into his lap. He held her tight, wrapping his arms around her like a warm living harness.

"It’s fine," he reassured her softly, "perfectly normal. See, even the stewardess doesn’t look frightened; she’s still happily passing out drinks like it never happened. The trick is, if the flight attendants look calm, you don’t have to worry."

"And if they do?"

"Well, that’s another story. But they won’t." The turbulence was long gone but he kept her firmly ensconced in his lap. For some reason, she didn’t feel quite as nervous looking out the window while his arms were around her and she settled back against his chest while she scanned the horizon.

"Oh, look! Are those dolphins? I think they are: a whole pod of them!" Rose squirmed with glee, squeezing his hand in excitement this time. He gently eased her forward on his lap.

"Fantastic," he murmured, only half watching the leaping dolphins.

"Ooh, do you see that tiny island over there? It’s like a classic shipwreck island. You know, where everyone has to wear bras made of coconut shells and huddle together at night to stay warm, and—"

”Rose, I… I think you should probably get your seatbelt back on, just in case…I’ll switch with you so you can see out the window.”

"Thanks," she agreed, not turning away from the window as he lifted the armrest and slid out from under her into the empty seat. "Thanks for making me feel better, Doctor."

"Yep," he grunted, grabbing an in-flight magazine from the seat pocket and thrumming through it as if it might contain something he’d want to read.


	2. Ten/Rose; Frightened; Puppy

It was a tiny little thing, dappled with grey and trembling with fear, and the second Rose lay eyes on it she was besotted. She and the Doctor had been meandering back to the TARDIS after an eventless evening jaunt through a night market on an unpronounceable planet in some far off galaxy. The clouds had decided to offload their burdens atop the not-a-couple’s heads but neither minded in the least: she was tucked away under his long jacket lapels before he could even gleefully hold them open.

“YIP!” 

The puppy was huddled under a purple bush, its head hunkered down to the dirt and emitting a plaintive cry. She extricated herself from the Doctor’s side in a flash, barely registering the soft growl of displeasure that was issued from his throat in response. Kneeling down slowly so as not to further frighten the poor creature she tentatively held out her hand for the puppy to smell. It didn’t bother, galloping toward her instead and leaping into her other arms.

“Oh, sweetie,” she cooed, rubbing it’s wrinkled little forehead and folding it into her side to protect it from the rain. “Are you scared? I won’t let that mean old rain hurt my baby puppy, no I won’t.”

She saw a flurry of movement in the corner of her eye.

“IT’S A PUPPY! ROSE, IT’S A PUPPY!!!” He was bouncing up and down, his hands flapping with elation and a smitten grin eclipsing his entire face.

She jumped up and grinned. “PUPPY!!!” she squealed back. He held his arms out beseechingly and with a kiss behind the puppy’s prominent ears, she carefully handed it over and stood in front of the Doctor, shielding the puppy between their bodies.

“We’re obviously keeping him,” the Doctor remarked as if the unspoken question was a given. It was a given and neither needed to be asked once, much less twice. “This little guy—or girl, nope, definitely a boy—has clearly been traumatised, left out here all alone. No family left, I reckon.”

“You’ve got us, now,” she singsonged to the puppy, scratching its squirmy little leg, “and we’ll never let you go. You’re stuck with us forever.”

“I’ve always wanted a puppy,” he clucked to the calming animal, “and now we have you. Brilliant!” A shudder of excitement rocked through his entire body and he leant forward suddenly and bestowed a firm lick across her jawline.

The Doctor. Not the puppy.

Her responding laugh was so full of mirth that he did it again, restoring symmetry by dragging the flat of his tongue across her other jawline. When he was finished and watching her with no small degree of satisfaction, she giggled and mirrored his actions across his jaw.

“Oww. Didn’t think about two-day stubble. Remind me not to do that again.”

He pulled her close, careful to avoid squishing the newest member of Team TARDIS, and pulled his jacket closed around them both. Her hair smelled like the rain, like flowers and eucalyptus, like family. After one last deep inhalation, he rotated her to the side of his body so they could walk.

“Come on, let’s get Harley home.”

“Harley? Absolutely not. Greyson, ‘cause he’s grey.”

“Greyson?! He’s not a butler, he’s a widdle baby doggie, yes he is…”

She snorted but wrapped her arm around his waist as they continued on their way, the Stuff of Legend marching home triumphant, the Doctor’s coat tails fluttering behind in the breeze.


	3. Nine/Rose; Embarrassed; Mallet

“I used to be better at this,” the Doctor muttered, his cheeks pink. “Honestly, Rose, I did!”

“Of course you did, Doctor,” she appeased him, “just like your dancing abilities. One day I’m sure I’ll have the pleasure of seeing your moves.”

His flush deepened and he tightened his grip on the mallet. “I can do it this time. Just you watch; I’ll catch every single one.”

“Of course you will, Doctor.”

Jack guffawed and stepped forward. “Care to make it more interesting? A wager: whoever bashes more gets…Mmm, whoever wins gets to bunk with Rose tonight.” A mischievous gleam sparkled in his eye.

“Wait a minute, I’m not a priz—“ she interjected but neither man glanced her direction.

“Not a chance. Besides, that top bunk is mine; I don’t need to bet to keep my place.”

“No way. You got it last night; I’m not sleeping in the bathtub again.”

“Tough,” the Doctor sang with a grin. “I’m not leaving you alone with her. And I’m almost a millennium old; your infantile joints can deal better.”

“Guys, I—“ she tried to interrupt but found herself being ignored again.

“Ha! You get new bodies all the time; I’m stuck with this one. Who knows how long I’d have to deal with a dislocated disc from being scrunched up in that horrible tub.”

“Not long at all if you insist on being alone with Rose in the dark.”

“Doctor! Jack!” she hissed. They obediently turned their heads in her direction but kept their glaring eyes on each other. “Can you please stop eye-dueling and look at me?”

They reluctantly holstered their fuming gazes and met her eye.

“Good. Now, I have a proposition. No, Jack, not that kind. The lower bunk is a double and I’m tired of hearing you squabble. So: whoever whacks the most moles in the thirty seconds can share with me tonight—no, Jack, not that way.”

Each man squared their shoulders and cracked their fingers before nodding with gravitas. She struggled to keep a straight face when she saw them glowering at each other from the corner of their eyes.

“Doctor, as, er, uncontested loser of the last twenty rounds, you get to go first.”

She hovered a token over the slot. “Ready?” He swallowed and then nodded. “Go!”

She couldn’t say she wasn’t pleased to watch him smash down his mallet on those moles with fluid grace, the only betrayal of his intense concentration being the tongue sticking out of the edge of his mouth.

“Nineteen out of twenty! Nice job, Doctor; guess you do have the moves.” She squeezed his arm and he shrugged modestly but she saw the look of disbelief and pride flash through his eyes. “Okay, Jack. It’ll be tough, good luck. Ready?” He nodded seriously and the lights started flashing.

Jack’s effortlessness at hitting the brown plastic moles was more genuine but his hubris got the better of him and he peacocked himself by closing his eyes with a smirk in the last few seconds. “Nothing to it, just have to—ahhhh!“

He missed the last mole.

“Nineteen out of twenty!” she bellowed in an announcer’s voice, “It’s a draw!”

“Rematch!” Jack yelled, grabbing the mallet again from where he’d flung it in disgust.

Rose didn’t miss the look of terror in the Doctor’s eye.

“Nope, one time only. A draw means you both won, congratulations!”

“But Roooose, we can’t both fit into your bed,” the Doctor whined with a sharp look at Jack’s ensuing lascivious grin and eyebrow waggle.

“Well, it’s only fair; you both won, after all. I guess I’ll just have to take the top bunk and you two can kip together.”

The Doctor stared at her in even more horror and intense disappointment. “Rooooose!” he pleaded.

Jack’s grin grew.

“Rules are rules!” she trilled and flounced toward the exit to Chuck. E. Cheese. Jack bounced along behind her and the Doctor followed, sullenly.


	4. Twelve/Rose; Scared; Prison

He’s huddled up in a ball, head between his knees and breathing raggedly, when the glowing goddess unlocks the deadlocked door and crouches down in front of him. His glance upward is only momentary, confirming what he already knows he’ll see, before dropping back down to his kneecaps.

"Doctor," the ephemeral voice intones and he only smiles weakly into the mottled wool of his tattered robe.

She’s here often.

She’s never more than a desperate hope, flung into the darkness.  
Achingly soft fingers brush back his long, greasy locks from his dust-smudged forehead and he leans into the touch. Even if she’s a dream within a nightmare, it’s the first social tactile input he’s felt in months.

Gallifrey is gone, again: at least this time he hadn’t needed to make the decision. They’d more or less pressed that self-destruct button themselves, but not before shipping him off to a maximum security prison on some far-off planet even he’d never find. And when their voices screamed and then went silent in his mind, just like before, he’d barely mourned their loss, licking the condensation on the windowsill for hydration and shackled to a white wall.

It’s always a white wall.

The Time Lords will probably find a way back, anyway.

"Your eyes never change, do they? You may dress them up in different colours and shapes, but it’s always you. Tortured and weary with just a flicker of hope." His vision speaks softly and he buries his head further into his knees’ cradle.

Gentle fingers ghost along his wrists and with a snap the chains clatter to the floor. He covers his head with his hands and slumps to the floor, tucking his knees into his hollowed chest.

"Doctor, we need to go now. Do you think you can stand?" The voice of his sweetest regret is almost a whisper, her breath almost warm against his cheek. He curls up tighter, squeezing his eyes closed and wishing he could shut his ears against the hopeless stirring of belief.

"You’ve been here too long," she mutters under her breath and drops to her knees. His skin aches as she runs illusory fingers across his arm and he can’t stop the stirring in the empty space between his hearts. "I’m not a hallucination," she promises, "I’m getting you out of here, okay?"

It’s nothing his siren hasn’t tempted him with before.

"You’re only skin and bones but I can’t carry you; Doctor, _please_ , stand up. Look at me, at least.” He doesn’t bother to move.

"How can I prove I’m real?" His eyes throb from being screwed so tightly closed but he doesn’t relent.

She takes his hand after a moment and moves it to her body; he’s about to wonder what how he must look, his arm raised into thin air, when something flutters under his fingertips and flutters into his defenseless mind.

He opens his eyes.

"But…you…" His voice is scratchy from disuse and too dry from lack of water to force out any other noises. But his mouth can gape open and his eyes can lock onto hers.

"My Doctor was struck mute too. I know you never imagined this is how it happened; you always did like the circle of life idiom, though."

"You—" he finally chokes out before his body is racked with violent coughs.

"Yeah," she says between slowly upturning lips, reaching into her long cloak for a flask. "You can only have one sip, alright? More than that would be painful." He only stares at her distended abdomen, temporarily revealed by the shift in her cloak. Her smile turns sad and she twists open the lid herself, pressing it into his mouth and tilting it upward for only a second. Cool water streams down his throat and for all his shock and wonder, his body gulps it down greedily and follows it with his lips as she takes it away. She strokes his sallow cheek and closes her eyes briefly. "You can have more once we get out of here, yeah? My…you’re distracting the security team downstairs, we only have a few minutes. Our TARDIS is just down the hall. Please, you need to get up now."

"I saved them," he hears fall from his lips, "but—"

"I know," she whispers. Her eyes are pooling with tears and the only pain his jailers had never been able to induce storms through his broken body. 

He struggles up to sitting with atrophied muscles, and with a swansong he didn’t know he still possessed he shakily stumbles to his feet. Her soundless tears don’t cease but they stream across upstretched lips.

"Lean on me, yeah?"

"Always," he rasps out, his eyes trained on her swollen belly as the world spins under his feet. He barely notices their slow progression down the empty corridor, white and featureless like his dreams, and when he sees his beautiful ship’s daughter, blue and steady in his wavering vision, she has to clutch her arms tighter around his emaciated waist to keep him from stumbling. The doors unfurl like the wings of a deity as they approach and the second he’s on the familiar grating he hears her singing in his head.

Rose drags him over to the tattered old jump seat, identical in every way to the one he’d loved with a passion, and lays him down across it. With an inscrutable smile, she fumbles for the never-used safety harness and straps him in. ”I’m not quite proficient at landings yet; they’re a little bumpy,” she apologies.

"Best kind," he murmurs as his eyes droop, his hand drifting up to rest on her gentle swelling before she can turn away. "Rose and Arkytior. My beginnings and my ends."

She lays her hand atop his. “It’s not your end quite yet, Doctor. Trust me: there’s so much more. More bets to make, more fields to run in, more shaky hands and sweaty palms. More hands to hold.”

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

His eyelids surrender to their weight and he takes that final leap into darkness, acutely aware for the first time of light’s gradient peeking across the horizon.


	5. Ten/Rose; “The Straw that Broke the Camel’s Back”

Every day he unloaded an item from his transdimensional pockets into her new matching ones and everyday she accepted the unnecessary baggage with a giggle and squirm of delight. He started with the colourful baubles he knew she’d enjoy: shimmering trinkets; frosted squares of sea glass; yoyos; a pair of plastic wind-up monkeys that flipped and clashed together their cymbals. 

When his pockets were slightly lighter from the loss of their heft, he reached further down and proffered things he’d acquired in reverent memory: a playbill from one of his many visits to Shakespeare’s Globe; a crumpled and discarded poem from Emily Bronte’s wastepaper bin; a vial of sunset-coloured sand from Wirt’lewka Epsilon; a photograph of himself and a purple scaled lifeform making faces at the photographer.

He was soon a new man, taller and slimmer, and still the pockets in his jacket were weighed down. But she smiled and said she’d love to come and she lay beside him in the apple grass and she insisted that her pockets weren’t full enough. So he closed his eyes and searched with his fingers through the seemingly-infinite darkness and spread the items at her feet: a torn newspaper clipping of a young woman he failed to save; a white paper bag full of stale jelly babies; a clipping of a blond curl, wrapped in red ribbon with an explanation of which he couldn’t force past his swollen throat; a pair of withered silver leaves, still attached at the stem.

She took them all without comment and placed them carefully in her pockets as if they were treasures, smiling a sad smile and wordlessly enfolding him in her arms each time. When his anxious mind finally processed her quiet acceptance and lack of horror, he brushed his fingers down to the deepest darkest corners and held out a box with a big red rose-shaped button. She took it from his trembling hands, pocketed it like it wasn’t the most dangerous weapon in the universe, and kissed his still-sensitised fingertips.

He’d been watching her carefully for the straw that would finally cause her back to break and leave him like all the rest. But when it was placed on top of all the rest and he eyed her with terror, it was the diametric opposite that transpired.

And so it came to pass, all at once, in the twinkling of the eye of a needle in a haystack, that he was _finally_ light enough, unburdened enough, unfettered enough to let go and capture her lips and clasp her to his chest and take his absolution in her moonlit skin and his pardon in the curve of her hip and—


	6. Tentoo/Rose; Fight; Throw up

Rose storms into their camper van, seething and practically steaming out of her pores. “How dare you?” she shouts, her voice echoing fiercely around the small capsule.

"How dare _I_?” he sputters, “You think _I_ wanted to tell them we’re not married?”

"You told them I was your sister! And then proceeded to ogle that simpering daughter of theirs when they thrust her upon you like…like a jam jar tied with a bow!"

"I _did not_ ,” he insists, slamming open the tiny fridge and pulling out a jam jar.

"Don’t even…" she warns him with venom in her voice and he meets her eye and slowly twists off the lid.

”I was only being polite,” he says in a frustratingly calm tone once he’s licked a satisfying glob of jam off his index finger. “She was flinging herself at me, I just didn’t want to reject her publicly. Besides, _you’re_ the one who doesn’t want to be my wife, _you’re_ the one who thinks that taking vows to honour and cherish each other for all of our eternity is an exercise in futility!”

She deflates a little, knowing where this argument is going and wanting to avoid seeing that look of jealousy and defeat in his eyes. “We don’t need to do that, Doctor, I promised you forever and I mean it.”

"I know we don’t need to. But what if I _want_ to? What if I _want_ to introduce you as my wife, if I _want_ to flash a ring at giggling women that don’t possess an atom of your fire, if I _want_ to feel your promise cold against my skin when I hold your hand and feel it warm up under my touch?”

She steps forward, her gaze softening and a lump in her throat. “Doctor, I—”

The lump in her throat travels down to her stomach and suddenly she’s clamping her hand over her mouth and racing for the cramped loo. She only barely lifts the lid of the toilet in time before throwing up every last morsel of food from the barbecue they had just attended.

He’s at her side, or rather at her back since the bathroom barely encloses her own body, instantly and rubbing her back.

"I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Rose, I didn’t mean to upset you… I mean, you didn’t have to react _quite_ so strongly to the idea of marrying me, but I won’t bring it up again, you’re always enough. Having you by my side is always, more than enough…”

Grabbing a square of ecologically safe toilet paper and wiping (exfoliating) her mouth clean, she sits back into his arms and rests the back of her head against his neck.

"I wasn’t reacting to that, at least, I don’t think so… It just kind of hit me…maybe that sausage wasn’t cooked all the way."

He nods into her hair. She wets her lips and continues. “I was actually going to say that if you want to marry me, if the most amazing man in the entire multiverse wants to dress up in a stuffy tuxedo and shake hands with wedding guests and pose for pictures and write thank you letters for gifts we don’t need… well, then let’s do it. It would be my privilege to wear a ring that warns off other men and proclaims me as yours.” She knows him well.

"Rose…" he murmurs, leaning down to nuzzle into the hair on her neck.

"But you’re dealing with Jackie and her wedding book of death."

"Done. Um, Rose?"

"Mmm?" She’s a little distracted by light touch of his nose in her hair.

"You, um…You haven’t taken your birth control since we’ve been here, have you?"

"I…What? Um, no, I forgot it…Doesn’t really matter anyway, you said…"

"I was wrong."

The dust particles shimmering in the stale air of the trailer seem to pause in their floating dance across the sunbeams.

"You were…I’m…We…" She can barely inhale enough air to speak.

"Think so…" he says quietly, trepidus hope flooding his words. A silly grin rises up her mouth and she feels an identical one stretching across her neck.

"Suppose we don’t need those rings now," he whispers hoarsely into her hair, trailing tender and awe-filled kisses down her shoulder. "There’s going to be living proof of our forever in our arms."


	7. Ten/Rose; Injuries

“Rose? Are you hurt?”

“No,” she gritted out, focusing on the TARDIS on the horizon. “Stop asking.”

“But Rose…” His face was one of concern but she could see a tiny glint of glee behind his carefully neutral eyes.

“Nope. Just—” She was forced to clamp her mouth closed to halt a whimper when her foot went down heavier than she’d expected down a dip in the path. “—peachy. Don’t make it a thing.”

“You would be more convincing if there wasn’t a line of tiny blood drops trailing behind you.”

She glanced behind them; sure enough, her orange-red blood stood out like a bread crumb trail on the white sandy path. “A nick.”

The Doctor bit back a grin; she could see it. His eyes lit up and the muscles in his cheeks quivered like an earthquake. “Nope. Up you go,” he trilled and with that he scooped her into his arms and crossed the remaining distance to the TARDIS at a sprint.

“Doctor!”

“I’ll fix you up,” he vowed solemnly while he ran, his eyebrows furrowed but a hint of a pleasure still evident on his lips. His chest was puffed out and he looked for all the world like he thought he was Superman rescuing a helpless victim or perhaps a medic rushing a patient to lifesaving surgery in the middle of a war zone.

“This is getting old, Doctor,” she groaned as they got to the blue doors and he shifted her around awkwardly trying to get the key in the lock, refusing to put her down. If she’d been seriously injured, his ship would have opened the doors for him, but Rose got the sense the TARDIS was laughing at his bluster.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”

She rolled her eyes.

He nodded seriously, as if she’d instead been praising his valour, and resumed his manly dash to the recently refurbished infirmary. The lights were soft and low as he lowered her gently onto the examination table and fished around in the pile of clean washing for a white jacket. Swinging it around his shoulders like a cape before sliding his arms in the sleeves and rolling up the cuffs with a flourish, he studied his patient.

“Doctor, it just needs a cleaning and a plaster. I scraped it in the rock pool, that’s all. Don’t go crazy again.”

“You’ll be fine, Rose. The Doctor is here.”

She sighed and lay back against the pillows. Might as well get comfortable.

The Doctor darted around the room in a frenzy, piling packages of gauze and medical tape on the counter and washing his hands several times. Thirteen different anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal, and anti-whatever-crazy-microbes-they-had-on-this-planet applications to the graze on her foot later, he took the roll of gauze and wrapped it around first her foot and then continued north until her leg was bandaged up to mid-thigh.

“Just to be on the safe side,” he muttered gravely.

He next proceeded to check her entire body over for other injuries (she sighed as he asked her to remove her bra: if this was the only way he’d ever touch her, so be it…) and painted yellow infection prophylactic gel across all abnormal spots and contusions. Which included several freckles, a mole, and a chicken pox scar from when she was six years old.

He was about to start her on a saline IV drip when she hopped down from the table, much to his shock and despair.

“Rose! Your leg!”

Clamping down hard on her lower lip and inner cheeks with her teeth, she forced her face into an expression of adoration and wonder instead of falling apart from the fit of laughter that was threatening to engulf her.

“It feels so much better now! My hero…”

There. That’s what he wanted and that’s what he always got, much as she regretted ever dozily murmuring that to him after he fixed a sprained ankle. A slow, satisfied smile rose up his cheekbones and his dimple flashed in happiness.

“No big deal, Rose.”

She flung himself into his eagerly spread arms and buried her giggles in his chest.


	8. Pete/Jackie; Death of a Loved One

They’re ghosts to one other, flickers of consciousness and dread that each ache to grasp onto, to clutch at with desperate fingers but couldn’t, wouldn’t, in terror of contracting around only emptiness and delusions. They’re a pair of bittersweet memories incarnate, each other’s imaginary friend, and they find themselves startling when other people seem to speak to their beloved spectres. They eye one another in their peripheral vision, track their friendly ghoul’s every movement but never connect their gazes.

The apparition of Jackie’s dead husband, the face she often witnesses flicker across her daughter’s expressions or hears in her speech patterns or experiences in her eternal optimism: he somehow manages to drive a heavily armoured Jeep back to his home base and somehow they all sit quietly in the back seat.

The apparition of Pete’s dead wife, wearing an expression of compassion and love he had almost forgotten and hadn’t witnessed since the first few years after their wedding: she’s holding her beautiful blonde daughter and stroking her hair and somehow Rose takes comfort and somehow tears spring to his eyes.

Somehow.

And somehow he has a daughter and somehow her daughter has a father and somehow they catch each other’s eye in the review mirror and somehow she reaches her hand forward and somehow the nerves in her fingers transmit the feeling of his shoulder to her brain and somehow her hand has weight.

Somehow they’re a pair of ghosts that can touch. And somehow, _somehow_ , death has been conquered and has been rendered meaningless. And somehow, in some halfway universe, they’ll make it through.


	9. Tentoo/Rose; Newborn; First Nappy Change

_Single heart: still beating._

He releases a deep breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. Wait: breathing?

_Lungs (bypass-free): still respiring normally._

All good so far. He scans the wide expanse of the park, his eyes narrowed and hyper-vigilant. Who knows who could be hiding behind those trees, _what_ could be lurking in the midday shadows. Viruses, rabid raccoons (rabies had made it to the British Isles in this universe), wildfire. _Wildfire!_ He steps back quickly from the large oak tree he’s been leaning against and hurries closer to the middle of the clearing, quickly mapping out the best escape routes. Just in case. 

ULTRAVIOLET RAYS. Had Rose remembered sunblock? Can newborns safely absorb sunblock? WHAT WERE THEY DOING OUTSIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE OF CANCER AND DEATH? Panicked, he hunches over the tiny universe in his arms, trying to shield her from the sun’s dastardly rays.

His lips find her forehead automatically when he’s this close like a glorious reflex he never thought possible and wondered how he’d survived until now without its deploy. Her infant scalp radiates warmth and a fragrance so powerful he can taste it on his tongue, feel it race through his blood and settle in his chest. His daughter’s head: the most addictive substance in all the galaxies; the only addiction worth acquiring; the only craving he’ll never satisfy enough. He splits the scent into its components, cataloguing and labeling each one as if he could replicate its grandeur and sell it as courage, as laundry power or perfume, as a cure for the common man.

Oxytocin (57.6%); baby powder (8.7%); opiates and derivatives (2.7%); inimitable essence of the most important entity in time and space (29.6%); ammonia (1.4%). 

Wait.

He sniffs further south, running his nose softly down her (still breathing) white-cotton clad torso. The concentration of ammonia increases exponentially.

A fresh wave of panic resurfaces: this is _not_ a drill. He’s prepared himself for this, has visualized and sequenced all the steps in his mind sixteen times since yesterday alone, has the chapter (of twelve different books and a medical text book) memorised, but all his hands remember to do is wring at his sides. Which would not be particularly helpful with a baby ensconced within them.

He kneels down on the grass and tugs a receiving blanket out from his transdimensional pocket, smoothing it carefully on the ground before slowly lowering his daughter to lie on top. One hand on her chest ( _what if she’s a genius and rolls over and he doesn’t catch her in time and she touches the grass and she’s allergic and…_ ) he frantically searches the general vicinity for help.

He’s alone.

Without taking his eyes off her, he reaches into his pocket again and rummages until he finds the emergency bag of nappies and hypoallergenic wipes. The wipes have no instructions and the nappies have only cartoon drawers of yellow ducks.

He swallows.

“Allons-y, my second heart,” he finally whispers to her and pops each leg snap with caution until her chubby pink legs kick merrily in the air. The hospital-supplied nappy is adorned with green leapfrogs. It has no instructions printed on it either.

Trembling fingers fumble at the fasteners on the sides and all at once the nappy falls forward, exposing even more skin to the sunshine. His throat closes as he realizes this is the first time she’s ever felt the sun on her legs, one of only billions and billions of firsts for them both.

In that instant he knows exactly what he’s doing: his hands lift her rosy feet and deposit a clean nappy under her bum; his fingers deftly seal the velcro sides back up; his lips are drawn like magnets to the patch of skin just to the left of her clamped bellybutton and he’s never felt anything as soft as his genetics mixed up with the other love of his life’s genetics. It’s so frictionless he wonders for a second if he’s touching anything at all, if he somehow missed her body in his mouth’s downward trajectory.

And he could have missed it. He could have missed all this, in one way he did miss it, all because of fear. Fear of joy’s inevitable sorrow, fear of death, and fear of virtually limitless life.

But all that, all those blusterings and sidelong glances and nervous deflections are infinitesimal compared to this. The feeling of his daughter clutching his index finger, the arresting blue stare of her eyes, the protection of innocence, and her nearly infinite possibilities.

Stella’s all buttoned up (only a few out of place) and bundled back in his arms when Rose emerges from the hospital doors a few minutes later, her eyes immediately locating them both. Jackie’s pushing her daughter’s defiantly empty wheelchair, laden with more flowers than the entire hospital courtyard garden holds, and Pete is dragging along a blond preschooler hopelessly distracted by every object they pass.

Rose walks over at a fast pace, obviously aching from not seeing her daughter for the last five minutes, and he quickly closes the distance when he sees the twinges of pain she’s trying to mask with every step. Her arms are already stretched out and he nestles their forever inside. He leans down to kiss his daughter, his arms never feeling so empty and his chest never feeling so full, before brushing his lips against his wife’s forehead.

“Ready?” she murmurs, a hitch in her voice.

“Ready.”


	10. Nine/Rose; the Allegory of Barcelona

His cell membranes were already breaking down when he heard her groan and dazedly sit up on the grating, held together only by the golden packets of regeneration energy. His lips, the lips that had brushed along hers in a deathbed swan song, stretched into a pained smile when her eyes landed on his. Lips that he could have tasted her on for the next few days, lips that had never tasted her before and never would again, lips that were his life’s death and corpse. She didn’t remember and he wasn’t going to tell her. These lips, these lips made so sacred that they could only be burnt in effigy…these lips would never tell her anything ever again. Other lips, new and terrifyingly unknown might tell her. Might not. Regeneration changed everything.

Would he even be able to appreciate her slow grin, her endlessly malleable heart, her eternal faith in the inherent goodness of the universe?

Would the way her thumb brushed against his own still send him into paroxysms of hope and a need to gather the entire universe into a snow globe and lay it at her feet?

Would this damaged and scarred body combust from the inferno of her lips and rise from the ashes a man more worthy of her fearful compassion, a phoenix to her flame? Or would a callous or irreverent man brush off her golden dust from his trousers and set course to take her home, bored by her splendor?

**_Rose Tyler. I was going take you to so many places. Barcelona. Not the city Barcelona, the planet Barcelona. You’d love it. Fantastic place. They’ve got dogs with no noses. Imagine how many times a day you end up telling that joke, and it’s still funny._ **

**_Then, why can’t we go?_ **

**_Maybe you will, and maybe I will. But not like this._ **

Maybe we will. I hope. I love. (More words these lips could never say.)

At the very last dregs of his season under the stars, she was the sight to which he closed his eyes for the last time and because of whom the ensuing pain was bliss compared to his fears and regrets.

He changed.

She didn’t.

When he opened his new eyes for the first time she was still his lighthouse in a tempest, his fixed point and his comfort, his warbling evensong and his hymnody and his rapture, his hope flung against the dark night just before the break of dawn.

**_So, where was I? Oh, that’s right. Barcelona._ **


	11. Nine/Rose; Complacent; Weeder

The Doctor narrows his eyes and glares at the human boy. “I don’t trust him.”

"You don’t trust the…gardener?" Rose watches him for a few seconds and then rolls her eyes, trailing her fingers along the ivy-clinging fence.

"There’s something about him. Can’t put my finger on it but something makes me queasy when I look at him."

"The gardener," she repeats.

"Yes, the gardener. Can’t afford to become complacent; always on the alert, me," he states, glancing around for effect, just a hint of smugness in his voice.  
"And that’s good," Rose agrees with just a hint of patronising in her voice, "but we’re in Cornwall. In a holiday cottage. In 1956. Can’t we just…I don’t know, go swimming or something? There’s very little chance of alien invasion here; I’d have heard about it in my time."

"Time can be re-written, Rose Tyler. What did I just say about complacency?"

"Doctor, are you trying to avoid putting on your swim trucks? I know you have some here; the TARDIS put them in my beach bag."

"I…no," he sulks.

"That’s it, isn’t it?" A giant grin erupts across her face and she bumps her shoulders into his. "Really?"

"No." He’s more adamant this time but she still doesn’t quite believe him.

"Tell you what, I’ll put on my bikini and meet you in the water. I won’t look, if that’s what you’re worried about."

"I’m not worried about what you think about my body, Rose."

"Then what?"

"It has nothing to do with my swim trunks! I’m just suspicious of this boy.” He says the word like he’s discussing a banana tree virus.

"Boy? He’s at least my age, maybe more."

"Exactly. Trouble."

"He hasn’t even looked at us once since we stepped outside."

"Precisely my point. If that isn’t dodgy behaviour I don’t know what is!"

"You want him to look at us? Fine." She hollers out a hello to the young man and waves. He looks up from his weeding and tips his weeder to his forehead in greeting.

"Rose! Now you’ve drawn his attention to us!" The Doctor grabs her waist and pulls her into the shade, away from the prying eyes of the patently nefarious gardener.

"Doctor, you’re acting really weird. I’m putting on my swim cossie and going down to the beach. Come if you want." She turns on her heal and begins walking back to their cottage.

"Rose! Don’t… Wait, I’ll come with you. Even better, just bring the bag and we’ll change down at the beach." He glances at the gardener child. "It’s secluded down there."

Rose stares at the Doctor for a few seconds. “You want to change down on the beach?”

"Yes!" The Doctor looks immensely relieved with his idea and wraps his arm around her shoulders, glaring at the man-child again.

She puts the pieces together. It isn’t his own body he’s worried about exposing to the world (or to a sweet gardener who may have been just a _little_ pretty). Craning her head to see over the hill leading down to the private beach, she assesses his plan. Secluded from the row of cottages (and their gardens), yes, but the beach itself is only a bare strip of brown sand. Nothing to duck down behind, no covering whatsoever.

"Okay." This is going to be fun.

"Really? I mean, yes, good. Go grab the bag, I’ll wait for you here." They’re standing three metres from the door.

Before she can chicken out, she reaches inside and picks up the bulging beach bag, hauling it over her shoulder and carrying it back to where the Doctor’s still glowering at the poor gardener.

"Ready?"

"Race you," she shouts, taking off before she’s even finished her sentence.

Of course he catches up to her within seconds and when they reach the sand she tackles him to the ground, giggling. “You cheat. Always have to employ that alien physiology, don’t you?”

Even sprawled in a sand dune, he manages to puff up. “Superior physiology. Can’t help it.”

She reaches for her bikini and starts lifting her t-shirt. The exact second he works out the flaws in his plan become evident across his face. She knows because she’s locked her gaze on him.

He blushes. He turns around, quickly. He raises his hand to cover his eyes, just in case.

"Doctor?"

"Yes?" he squeaks and then clears his throat. "I mean, what is it, Rose?"

"Aren’t you going to change too?"

She hears him take several breaths before replying. “My trunks are in the bag…by your feet.”

Throwing them over in his general direction, she hastily changes into the rest of her bikini, keeping the strings of her halter neck untied and held up only with her hand. The Doctor doesn’t move.

"Well, are you going put your trunks on or not?"

Even with only his face facing her, she can see him gulp. “Maybe I don’t feel like swimming, after all.”

"Doctor…" she moans in a low enough voice that he shudders. "Fine. Will you tie me up then?"

"Tie you…up?" He whips his head around and his eyes widen at the sight of her standing in precious few inches of covering.

"Yeah. My bikini ties. Can you do them up?" She turns around and looks back at him, lifting her hair away from her neck. A breeze picks up from the water and she shivers.

His fingers are shaky as he fumbles with the slippery strings and it takes far longer than it should take to tie a knot. Strands of her hair get caught in the ties but she doesn’t grimace.

When a bow finally adorns her neck, she moves a leg as if to step away but he stills her with a heavy hand on her shoulder.

She doesn’t dare turn around, just freezes in place, her breathing suddenly laborious. Steady hands sweep her hair back over her back and she shivers again: this time, there’s no breeze.

"Rose…" She swallows and tilts her head to the side under the guise of looking back at him, exposing her neck. His fingers ghost along the expanse of skin, sliding down along her collarbone and halting at the dip at the base of her throat. His other hand grips her bare waist and holds on tightly as if she’ll float away.

She might.

Without warning, he throws himself in front of her body and reaches behind him to grip her upper thigh. It takes her a good nine seconds to realise he’s not looking at her anymore but rather squinting at the top of the hill near the cottages and shielding her with his body.

"Goddammit, the gardener _is_ an invading alien,” she groans, eyeing the diaphanous spectre glaring down at them with wicked intent in its eye.


	12. Ten/Rose; Giddy; Flax

It was a flawless entrelacé jeté, legs straight as a pin and arms flung to the sky during the spin, ending in a steady pirouette piquée. It was confident, it had a great deal of lift, it ended with a graceful sweeping of the arms.

It was the Doctor.

"What on earth…" Rose could only think to enough to splutter, choking back something halfway between a gasp and a snort.

"Not on Earth!" the Doctor trilled, leaping over to her side. "Hrrilx. With a rolled ‘r’ and a hocking ‘x’" Without warning, he bent down and hauled her over his shoulder, taking off at a run. A run that included several instances of pas de chats.  
"Doctor!" she hollered with giggle, kicking her legs at his chest and beating lightly on his back. "What’s gotten into you? Put me down!"

"Gladly!" he rang out and grandly deposited her on the ground.

In a field of yellow flowers.

"Have you been drugged? Wait, are these flowers, like, catnip for Time Lords?"

Because he was acting exactly like an intoxicated cat. If cats did ballet.

"Nope! This is just run-of-the-mill flaxseed, even taken from Earth cuttings I should imagine."

"Then why are you so giddy? And more importantly why aren’t you sharing?"

He grinned. Like a Cheshire cat. “I’m only intoxicated with you, my beautiful human. Come on, it’s a glorious day! RUN THROUGH THE FIELD OF GOLD WITH ME!”

A slow smile rose up her lips. “You’re definitely high on something.”

"I already admitted that; you’re my sweetest drug." A shy smile peeked out from under his ducked head.

She didn’t know what to say to that and her grin turned bashful as she looked down and shuffled her feet along the dense stems. “Thanks,” she mumbled.

The Doctor started hopping back and forth on his feet but it didn’t look like a dance step this time. “So? Can we run?”

She took his hand. “I’ll always run with you, Doctor.”

"How long?"

Her tongue slipped between her teeth; this was probably the sixteenth time he’d asked her that, always while overlooking a magnificent view on a new planet. She was beginning to think he was punching in the coordinates for safe, picturesque planets just so he could repeat the question. She was always happy to answer.

"Forever."

And then the yellow flowers were racing past her vision as he tugged her hand and they sprinted through the field, the stalks coming up to their waists and undulating in the breeze of their stride.

And when they stopped in a circular clearing just large enough to hold two bodies, she blinked.

And when he leaned down to kiss her, she wasn’t surprised. ( _But, oh, was she giddy now, too…_ )

And when he pulled them both to their knees and procured a small box and a long silken cord from his breast pocket, she started crying.

"I know I do things differently than what you grew up with; I know it doesn’t make sense to kiss you for the first time and then ask you this; I know it’s all out of order and non-linear. But I also know that I can’t hold myself back any longer, and I know that every time you say forever my hearts almost skip right out of my chest, and I know…" His voice broke and he had to swallow and clear his throat. "And I know I want to see that forever not just in your eyes and in your words and in feel of your hand in mine. I want to see it on your finger too."

She wiped furiously at the crocodile tears streaming down her cheeks. He added his own hands to her efforts, cradling her face in his palms and brushing away the tears with his thumbs.

"What do you think? Rose Tyler, will you be my bondmate, my wife, my better half and my whole hearts?"

Boneless, she buried her face in his shirt and nodded into his chest. His arms clasping tightly around her led to a decidedly unattractive snotty hiccup and snorting gasp combination and he laughed, pulling her so close that she wondered if she might be able to fall into his skin.

"You have to say it." His words rumbled in her chest.

“Yes.”

"No, the other word," he whispered.

"Forever," she whispered back.

His kissed her. He slid an invisible ring onto her finger, one that only they could see. He wrapped the cord around their entwined hands and intoned powerful words in a language only he was keeping alive. He spun her around in the clearing and he kissed her again.

"I love you isn’t enough," he murmured into the skin of her neck, "but I feel that and more. And even though it can never suffice I’ll tell you so every day. The last time I say it may well be in death, but it will be true beyond the end of time."

The second sun was setting and the stars were coming out when he took her hand again. They got back to the TARDIS just as the clouds began rolling in and the thunder growled in the distance.


	13. Ten/Rose: Cybermen ghosts in Pete's world

She slowly peels off her blue top, sliding down the zipper tooth by tooth, sliding the fluffy wool off her arms, sliding off her shoes, sliding off her jeans, sliding into the guestroom be—oh, who cares what she does. She does it alone.

Her mum had held her on the ride to Pete’s house, stroked her hair until the tears soaked straight through her jumper, but now the tears have all dried up and she only feels empty. Raw and empty. It’s surreal, everything about this is surreal, but she knows that sleeping won’t wake her from its nightmare.

A bright light startles her from her sleepless tossing and turning, so bright that she opens her eyes only to screw them closed again. At the same time, a clattering and shout drifts through the crack under her door, more angry than frightened, and she doesn’t move. Nighttime lights, zeppelins, who really cares? This universe is different and this universe doesn’t contain him.

A tentative knock. “Rose? Are you awake?”

She doesn’t respond, pulls the duvet up over her head.

"Pete just told me that these ghosts are only an echo; a reverberation from…from our proper universe. Torchwood already checked them out; didn’t want you to worry."

Of course. More reminders of home; everything here is only a faint echo, a pale imitation. (The only echo she cares about is the echoing of his second heart against hers.)

—-

The next night, her eyelids heavy and aching, she mechanically undresses and lies atop the covers, not bothering to close her eyes. The disembodiment is washing away into the luxury shower drain and she yearns for its protective coating again; this is real, she’s emigrated from him, immigrated into a world that will never be hers (can you be alien to an entire universe?).

At twelve-thirty exactly (she knows: she’s been staring at the irritatingly linear clock on her night stand for an hour and three minutes) the ghost appears, a humanoid shape flickering in the corner of her vision. She doesn’t turn her head but she does fall asleep.

—

Rest does wonders for her but it’s not a panacea and she’s still only going through the motions. When the ghost bursts into being that night, she half-smiles and toys with her fingers where they’re screaming for his touch.

—

_The more you want it, the stronger it gets._

The ghost of her memories appears, right on time, and she snuggles into the warm feeling in her chest. Two weeks and her constant companion has never failed, has never let her down. The ghost (and her mum): the only sources of constancy in the vicissitudes of her life, and she clings to them both.

—

_Why can’t it be real? Just think of it though. All the people we’ve lost. Our families coming back home. Don’t you think it’s beautiful?_

Her brain knows it isn’t him, but her heart… There’s no harm in pretending. No harm in willing the rare moments of feeling into existence whenever the light appears: it’s infinitely better than the dark. The Doctor had equated the void with hell; it might have been better than this.

But it’s getting better. Slowly and nails scrabbling on a cliff-face, she’s pulling herself up and coming to terms with it all. If she unloads her burdens and the emotions she bites back on a day-to-day basis to the ghost of a man she still loves more than she dreamed possible… Well, it’s helping with the healing and she doesn’t think anyone would try and take that away, too…

She stretches her hand out to the body-shaped light and imagines he almost reciprocates.

—-

"Rose? Are you still awake? Big day tomorrow at Torchwood, wouldn’t want you to miss out on your sleep…" Her mum’s voice calls out quietly, delicately. One day everyone will stop treating her like the fragile doll that she still is.

"I’m in bed, don’t worry, mum."

"Turn out the light, sweetheart; you need your rest."

"It’s just the ghost. It’ll be gone soon."

The door swings open. “The gho—” Jackie stares agape at the light beaming in her corner. “What is that?”

Rose sits up and furrows her brow at her mother. “It’s one of those ghosts. You know, echoes from our universe… You said…”

"Those disappeared weeks ago! And this…this is wearing a brown suit."

Her heart stutters to a stop. “You…you can see that too?”

"Hard to miss! Pete! Pete, come here!" Jackie yells out the door nervously. 

"I thought… I though that was just the power of suggestion, that I just wanted him so much…"

"No, sweetheart, that’s not a cyber-ghost… I don’t know what it is, but that’s nothing like…I know you weren’t there for much of the ghosts, back in…but that’s not anything like them…"

Her father runs in, panting from dashing up the stairs at Jackie’s tone of voice. “What…What is that?”

"That’s what I was wondering…"

Rose stands up and backs up against the opposite corner, staring at the manifestation of all her sorrows and joys. “I thought… I… But…”

—-

Three days later, he bursts through and he isn’t glowing with light anymore and he’s solid and he stands in her room, pinstriped and grinning.

"I told you, Rose; I’ll always come to get you."


	14. Ten/Rose: Ice bucket challenge fic

He gawks. Unabashedly.

And with good reason: she’s standing in a three foot high snow drift, powdered flakes lazily drifting down across her eyelashes and clinging like icicles to her hair. It’s the dead of night, the stars are startlingly clear overhead, and the white expanse of space is earsplittingly silent.

Except for the sound of her jacket zipper, descending down her chest.

“Live a little.” A tongue-tipped grin.

“I live quite enough, thank you. The same might be able to be said about you, however, if you keep removing layers in this climate. Rose…”

“ _Doctor,_ ” she mimics, tongue in chattering teeth.

“You’ve proven your point. Far braver than I. Now let’s go back inside; we haven’t roasted those marshmallows on the fire yet, and—”

“I was never in any doubt that I’m braver than you, Doctor,” she interrupts, catching his eye and holding it as she tugs down her ski trousers. They get stuck on her furry boots and she shrugs and kicks them off too. He winces to see her standing barefoot in the snow but fists his hands and forces himself not to scoop her up into his arms.

Luckily he’s had years of experience quelling _that_ particular urge.

She’s clad only in her long underwear and a jumper now, body shaking in the cold but her mouth set resolutely. “Join me.”

It’s not a request and he gulps.

“Rose, we shouldn’t…it’s not a good idea…”

She considers the Time Lord for a lengthy moment before her eyes glimmer dangerously and she saunters slowly over in his direction. Slow, sensuously, she crosses her arms over her stomach and lifts her jumper over her head, dropping the garment into the snow. He tears his gaze away from his predator and watches the wool sink slightly into the drift and ice crystals form along its lateral surface.

“Doctor.”

Despite himself, he raises his eyes to meet hers. Despite himself, his eyes trail along her shivering body on their way up, their swift movement momentarily faltering at the way her vest top clings to her flat abdomen, derailing completely at the sight of her chill-hardened nipples. Despite himself, he takes a step forward and cups her upper-arms.

Her skin is cool and goose-bumped and a shudder ricochets through her torso. “Rose,” he volleys, his voice deeper and more ragged than he expects.

In the distance an animal howls, fused almost at once with its mate, and the snowflakes seem to hover in the windless air.

Languidly and deliberately, she reaches down to slide off her thermal trousers, never once disengaging from his heated stare. He keeps his hands firmly on her arms as she reveals more and more naked leg; it feels like he’s the one removing her trousers as he bends his knees and follows her arm’s journey down her thighs. When she straightens, he remains supplicant at her feet, lightly brushing his fingers down her arms to grasp her hands. The snow is soaking through the knees of his pinstripes and his painstakingly backcombed hair is flattening with the weight of the melting snow and there’s an icy twinge permeating his tough Gallifreyan physiology and he doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care about a molecule in the entire universe except those that make up the snow goddess in front of him.

A breath catches in his throat as she lifts her trembling hands to hook a finger around the hem of her top and lift it over his head. Hands still decisively locked on hers, his arms are lifted above his head with her movements and the top gets trapped between their entwined arms.

He doesn’t care. Not when she’s standing before him in only her bra and knickers. Not when he knows some of her shivers aren’t from the cold. Not when there’s a vast expanse of skin above her naval his tongue aches to chart.

“No more clothes to remove, Doctor. Are you taking the plunge too, or not?”

Her whispered voice resounds louder than he’s ever heard and his potentiated muscles, exhausted from their constant inhibition by his nervous system above, stage a coup d’état against his brain. His brain knows the futility of resistance and the overthrow is bloodless.

All the blood has been diverted to troops down south, anyway.

He springs upright, circling one arm around her waist and another under her bum, hoisting her into the air for only a moment before gathering her close to his chest. Her feet are dangling in the still air when he kisses her. Kisses her lips, the divot of her chin, the crook of her neck, the translucent skin of her breastbone. Her arms wrap around his neck, bunching in the hair at the nape of his neck.

It might be minutes, it might be hours, it might be days before he emerges for air: he doesn’t know and he doesn’t care. She binds her knees to his sides, links her calves at his back, and it’s only four steps to the perfect circle carved through the ice. Two saccadic shifts to reach her eyes. Seventeen, maybe eighteen muscle activations in her smile ( _he doesn’t care_ ). One deep breath.

He leaps, he plunges, he submerses. Nothing new to it: he throws himself off buildings and jumps blindly in the dark every day. Opens the door to the TARDIS and tramples through the mists of myths, closes his eyes and hopes for a Hail Mary.

But this time—oh, this time—he’s not alone and he’s jumping in tandem and he’s leaping synchronously and he’s submersing himself in more than just cold water and ice drifts. And this time, the subzero temperatures of the dark, empty universe are nothing on the warmth of the body in his arms, the heat in his chest, the fire in his veins. 

“Hot tub?” she barely manages to bite out between full body tremors after a second of bobbing in the bitter sea.

“Bath,” he whispers, rolling them back onto the ice flow. “We need a warm, steamy bath.” She smiles and draws him in for an Eskimo kiss before racing back to the lodge, her Time Lord now and eternally in tow.


	15. Tentoo/Rose: jealous of puppy

The door creaks open so slowly behind her back that she knows he’s trying to sneak up on her. She lets him, forcing her upturning lips into a firm line and leaning forward into the vanity mirror to apply her mascara. There’s some skittering along the hardwood floor and still she pretends to be immersed in her morning routine.

And then something warm and wet licks her bare leg.

"Doctor!" she yelps and gently shoos him away only to have her foot brush against something small and furry when she’s expecting something tall and wild-haired.

"Surprise! I was going to wait for Christmas but…I couldn’t," he calls out from the doorway and she whips around to see him leaning against the doorframe, a smug expression failing to mask his overflowing glee.

The tiny critter yips and licks her leg again and she turns her attention to the little bundle of happiness, scooping him into her arms. “Hello! Hello! Who are you? I love you! Yes I do…”

After a minute of puppy bliss, she turns to the smirking part-human who’s now standing behind her with his hands lightly massaging her shoulders. He bends his lips down to brush against her ear and she catches his eye in the mirror.

"Do you always give your love away this easily, Mrs. Tardis-Banana?"

Rolling her eyes, she turns her attention back to the squirming puppy cradled in her arms. “Don’t worry, sweetie, it’s only on the official documents. You can go by Teddy Tyler.”

"Teddy?" The Doctor wrinkles his nose and runs his hand down Rose’s arm. "I was thinking Rex, or Lion, or…something tough and manly…"

"We would never call you Rex, would we Teddy? Never, no we wouldn’t. Because you’re a little teddy bear, yes you are!"

"But Roooose…" The puppy growls suddenly in the Doctor’s direction and crawls up Rose’s arms to begin licking her face.

The Doctor narrows his eyes.

"Listen here, Teddy. We need a Time Lord-to-doggie talk, you and I. I know Rose is lovely—the loveliest sentient being in multiple universes, actually—but you should know that she’s mine."

Teddy emits a squeaky bark and nuzzles into Rose’s shoulder.

The Doctor nuzzles into her other shoulder.

Rose plants a kiss on the over-excited puppy’s head and turns her neck to capture her hyperactive husband’s lips.

"Thanks," she whispers into his mouth, "I love him."

"My pleasu—now, just one moment, sir," he scolds as Teddy whimpers and paws at Rose’s cheek. "Respect boundaries, please. Man’s best friend indeed," he mutters to himself as the chocolate lab once again entrances her attention.

—-

Teddy finds himself unceremoniously snatched from snuggling in Rose’s arms in bed the next morning and deposited on the wrong side of a closed door. A satisfied sigh and the rustle of covers is heard from underneath the crack in the door.

"What did you do that for?" the goddess murmurs from under the duvet.

"He was licking you far too much. I don’t like it," the boorish one pouts.

"He’s a puppy! You’re just jealous because he doesn’t lick you.”

"Not true. I’m jealous because I’m the one who should be licking you; it’s my job. And now there’s canine slobber all over your succulent skin.”

There’s a moment of silence and Teddy hears fabric rubbing against fabric and the creak of the mattress.

"Plenty of untouched skin left for you, Doctor. And for the record, I fell in love with you faster."

More rustling sounds and several slurping noises drift through the door. Teddy turns away in disgust, his puppy claws clicking along the floor as he searches for a pair of red converses to wee on.


End file.
